The effects of the Jan. 21 Santa Ana windstorm continue to reverberate as cleanup efforts carry on across the 7Cs, while the loss of beloved trees has left students, faculty and staff questioning next steps.
The windstorm struck on a Friday night, causing widespread power outages and leaving a large number of uprooted trees in its wake. Beyond the campuses, the severe winds damaged several homes in Claremont and blocked roads due to the fallen obstructive debris.
The last time a windstorm of relative size hit Claremont was in the late 1990s, Ron Nemo recalled. Nemo, Pomona College’s manager of grounds and landscaping, has worked on Pomona’s grounds for 25 years.
“We lost about 25 trees back then, so this isn’t my first rodeo,” Nemo said. “But what we do is we clean up, take care of the land and get everything as safe as possible.”
While the Claremont Colleges are certainly not strangers to strong winds, the intensity of this storm’s damage was unprecedented.
“I’ve been asking a lot of folks who’ve been living here for 50 years or so, and they’ve all said that this is not something they recognize,” said Char Miller, Pomona’s W.M. Keck professor of environmental analysis. “Trees fall all the time, but not this kind of massive blast.”
Miller’s conclusion is supported by figures from the aftermath of the storm. At least 300 or more trees were downed in the greater area of Claremont, according to Bevin Handel, public information officer for the city of Claremont. One fallen eucalyptus tree on College Avenue was planted more than a hundred years ago when the city was established in 1887.
Although cleanup efforts are still underway, it will take weeks to fully clear all the debris and larger obstructions from campus and around Claremont. Repairing damaged infrastructure, such as sidewalks, will take even longer. In some cases, cranes have been called in to lift the larger trees.
Miller attributed the high level of destruction to several factors, including the proximity of trees to one another as well as the effects of drought on the soil and rootbeds.
“Soil starts to shrink in droughts and holds heat longer,” Miller said, “which means that for anything that’s rooted, it loses its strength.”
Pomona’s campus was most impacted by the storm owing to the higher number of large trees. Many native oak trees were toppled over, including several along Stover Walk, the loss of which has drastically altered the appearance of the once-lush canopy.
The most noticeable damage at Pitzer College was a large tree strewn across the Mounds just opposite McConnell Dining Hall. Cacti, a defining feature of Pitzer’s campus, were especially impacted. Many plants were damaged and some completely knocked down.
“They’re kind of supporting us, like relatives in a way. And just seeing them go, it’s as if you’re losing someone. So it’s not only part of your landscape, but at least for some like myself, it’s feeling as if you lost them when you saw them toppled over the next morning,” said Diego Tamayo PZ ’25, who felt a serious loss when significant trees at Pitzer were toppled. “I think that’s why they mattered, it’s because they are part of an extension of who we are here.”
Harsh damage also befell Scripps College’s greenery.
In total, eight trees were toppled over, along with serious damage to the diverse foliage dotting Scripps’ landscape. Cleanup efforts at Scripps began at 5 a.m. following the night of the storm.
Members of the Scripps community have grown fond of the surrounding trees, but Landscape Operations Manager Joya Salas said there’s a sense of anticipation to see how the recovery process takes form.
“It was chaotic because there was so much damage, but everyone buckled down and most of us worked all weekend. And everyone really showed up in a beautiful way,” Salas said. “I like to think that the trees all have personalities at Scripps. And they’re all recovering in their own way. It’s gonna be a process for some of them to regain their shape.”
In the midst of intense cleanup efforts across the campus, it was important to Salas to save wood from the fallen oak tree on the Scripps Jaqua lawn for repurposing at a later time. In the past, repurposed wood from a fallen Scripps tree was used to create the commencement podium.
In contrast to their more tree-populated counterparts, Harvey Mudd College and Claremont McKenna College faced less damage. Similar to the other colleges, cleanup efforts at Mudd and CMC have focused on the fallen debris.
As clean up efforts across the campuses continue, the big question on stakeholders’ minds is: what happens next?
Replanting processes are still in the early stages and could take up to a year to complete, according to Nemo. Oak trees at Pomona will likely be replaced with 24 inch box trees, which will then take several decades to begin resembling the trees that were lost.
Nemo emphasized that future plans will involve the college’s stakeholders and landscape architects as well as student and faculty input.
Miller and a group of Pomona students majoring in environmental analysis are urging Pomona’s administration to think critically about the sustainability of Pomona’s landscape as replanting processes are organized.
“You look at Pomona’s campus and you say, yeah, it’s beautiful. But there’s a lot of trying to bring the East Coast to the West Coast. And that’s not what we should be doing,” said Madi Brothers PO ’22, an environmental analysis major.
“There’s a lot of good native species that we could plant that would all be genuinely beneficial. We should be trying to enhance the biodiversity as much as possible.”
Brothers suggested that Pomona might look to Pitzer’s campus as an example of responsible landscaping practices, referring to the Pitzer Outback Handbook as a guide.
“There’s a lot of good native species that we could plant that would all be genuinely beneficial. We should be trying to enhance the biodiversity as much as possible.”
Nemo noted that certain areas of the Pomona campus are more formally designed than others, such as Marston Quad and the surrounding area, leaving less room for divergence from the original landscape.
Over at Scripps, Salas said that the trees will be replaced as close to “like for like,” as possible and a canopy restoration plan will be created to guide appropriate planting in the newly created space.
As for repurposing plans, Pomona professor of art Michael O’Malley is currently hoping to create benches and bowls from the wood in the hopes that the trees will remain a part of the Claremont community in new forms.
O’Malley said that the wood will be used as material in art classes in the future and stressed the importance of repurposed wood as an educational asset.
“People think that wood comes from Home Depot. And because we have a mill on campus, this is an opportunity for students to see how much work it takes to create wood from a living tree,” he said.
O’Malley’s vision for reincorporation of the trees into the community through art might provide some comfort to those who will never again walk under their shade.
“I think that’s why it’s really important not to just chip them off and remove them,” O’Malley said. “There’s a huge learning experience here that also creates intimacy with the material. It’s important for people to understand that the trees had a life and experiences, and you’re having another experience trying to transform them into something cultural.”
While remnants of the fallen trees have been saved for repurposing projects later on, the majority of the wood is being sent to a green waste facility where it will be composted.
In the aftermath of the storm, the surrounding community has rallied around one goal: preserving what can be kept and regrowing in a more sustainable way.
After seeing the destruction her parents’ house in Claremont suffered, Britany Marticorena PZ ’23 recognized the opportunity to assist community members impacted by the storm.
She created a small coalition of students to address the specific needs of community members who reached out. From tidying lawns to removing large branches, Marticorena says that making a change in the local community has been extremely rewarding.
“When something happens locally, it’s just so easy to provide some help, you don’t have to think so globally or nationally. When things happen locally, it’s really easy to get out there and fix it a little bit if you can,” said Marticorena.
Handel, from the city, praised community-centered efforts like those of Marticorena.
“We’re just really thankful for the community that they’ve all pitched in. They were cleaning parks and helping neighbors out,” Handel said. “So if there’s anything good that came out of it, it’s just really that the community has really come together to help each other out.”